'Desh ke woh raja hai...': Watch Sahara's Subrata Roy's old interview with Aaj Tak on fight with Sebi, RBI

Subrata Roy, founder and chairman of Sahara, died on Tuesday due to cardiorespiratory arrest. Roy, once one of the biggest names of Indian Inc, saw a fall from grace like none other. The eventual legal battle not only tarnished Roy’s reputation but also of the Sahara group that had at one point enjoyed major influence in sectors like finance, real estate, infrastructure and housing, media and entertainment, tourism, and hospitality.

In an interview with Aaj Tak’s Sayeed Ansari in 2013, Roy, speaking about the legal tussle the authorities, said that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) put a prohibition on them regarding the RNBC in a rather “filmy” way. The Residuary Non-Banking Company (RNBC), is a class of Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC), in which a company has its principal business in receiving deposits under any scheme or arrangement or in any manner and not being an Investment, Asset Financing, Loan Company, as per RBI. 

“Desh ke woh raja hai, khuda hai…jo apne kartavya ko nahin jaante keval apne haq ko jaante hai (They are the kings and gods of the country, who don’t understand their responsibilities but only their rights),” said Roy in the interview, talking about the forces behind the action initiated by the RBI. 

In the decade-old interview, Roy said that the entire saga started in 2005, but refused to acknowledge if his emotional letter to the President stating that only an Indian citizen should become the Prime Minister invited the wrath of the central bank. However, he said that a combination of factors has landed him in trouble. Nevertheless, he would later on go on to say that his troubles with RBI and SEBI began soon after his “emotional” comment on Sonia Gandhi. 

Roy said Sahara’s RNBC was going rather well, and the RBI Governor had also appreciated RNBC mostly because of its financial inclusion. “Bahut achcha yojana tha (It was a very good scheme),” he said. “2008 mein laa ke inn logo ne bahut ghalat tarike se, bari filmy tarike se prohibitory order daal diya (In 2008, they put on a prohibitory order in a very wrong and filmy way),” said Roy. They asked us to quickly shut the RNBC and immediately repay the investors, said Roy, adding that they then went to the High Court that ruled in their favour. 

The RBI then went to the Supreme Court that also ruled in favour of Subrata Roy and Sahara, he said in the interview. The RBI had to withdraw the prohibitory order subsequently and give the company a period of 7 years, Roy said in the interview. None of the investors, said Roy, rallied against the company. 

Roy, in the interview, accused the RBI of operating under vengeance. 

Subrata Roy was eventually arrested in March 2014 for failing to attend a contempt of court hearing. Sahara was once the sponsor of India’s national cricket team, and its assets at one point included New York’s Plaza Hotel, and Grosvenor House in London. He was also the co-owner of the former Force India Formula One team. 

Also read: Sahara Group founder Subrata Roy passes away at 75 in Mumbai

Also read: Subrata Roy, maverick founder of Sahara Group, dies at 75: A look at Roy's entrepreneurial journey and the challenges